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[Marie Laberge] So this is Marie Laberge. I'm interviewing Barbara Gates on January 12th, 2012 in Oro Valley, Arizona.

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So thank you for having me, Barbara. [Barbara Gates] You're very welcome. [ML] I actually wanted to start by asking you about

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your personal academic history, sort of what you're I notice I have your CV. I just was interested in sort of how you got to

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Women's Studies coming out of the 1950s and 60s graduate school. So what is your own academic history? [BG] I think the most relevant thing

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is probably how I got the PhD. And that is I lived in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania and I had wanted to go on with school,

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but I had two little children and I didn't have sufficient funds to go back to school. So my next door neighbor who was

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the editor of the Swarthmorian, which was a local paper. We've got to get you back to school. How are we going to do it?

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Simultaneously with that, a friend of mine at Penn saw a notice from the Danforth Foundation up on a billboard or on a board in Penn.

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And it said, women returning to school. Are you, are you, do you qualify for a doctorate in any subject? And it was from the Danforth Foundation.

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So she said apply. I said, well, I never win anything. She said, you're gonna win this one. I know you're going to win this one,

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so I applied and I won it and I was sponsored by the woman next door. And so as a thank you, I did a free course at

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Swarthmore Public Library on women in literature as I was doing the PhD. And so that sort of got me really going along with that.

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But the Danforth Foundation was a wonderful kind of a, a grant institution and it no longer exists for, for those degrees.

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But it did a number of special kinds of degrees like that. And it brought the women together who were working at that time,

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which was wonderful because it was sort of like being in a class with a bunch of women who were working really hard,

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most of whom had had a hiatus of some sort in their education and no way of getting back to school. And we were just thrilled to be there.

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And so that was what I was doing. Before that, I had been studying some Russian and some French literature,

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just trying to keep up with things and, and taking German down at Penn in case I ever could get back and get a PhD.

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But I didn't think I was going to be able to do it. [ML] Did you you know, you were gonna be studying women's literature?

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[BG] Well I wasn't studying just women's literature. But I was studying 19th century British literature.

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And if you're studying 19th century British literature, it's got the Bronte's and George Elliot, many other wonderful writers and

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Elizabeth Barrett Browning and all kinds of people who in the next decade we're recuperated like mad by various women scholars.

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So it was, it was a natural fit. It was great. [ML] And so how did you end up at the University of Delaware?

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[BG] Well I had been at the University of Delaware for a master's degree as a young DuPont wife and I had sort

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of kept some contacts there with Jan De Armond and Ed Rosenberry who had been the chair. And I had done fairly

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well with that and they liked my work. So when Charles Bohner got wind of the fact that I was finishing a PhD. He asked me to come down for an interview.

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And kind of rushed me. At the same time I had an interview at Penn and I was really interested in going to Penn.

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I lived in Swarthmore. I could jump on the train. It was a prestigious school, It was a great thing to do.

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Bohner didn't give me any wiggle room at all. He said you have ten days to make up your mind and the offer

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will be withdrawn. [ML] When is your interview at Penn? [BG] Well, it was in about ten days, so he knew that he had he had had got me if

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if if I really wasn't determined to go to Penn and I didn't know if I guess a jab at Penn or not. So I took the bird in hand.

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It was a tough time to get jobs in literature. It was one of those bad times to get jobs in literature. It was like now actually.

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So I was happy to have the job and I commuted for years from Swarthmore to to Delaware. [ML] And you started Delaware in? [BG] 1971, fall of 71.

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And I got into Women's Studies right away because Charles had been, Charles had this new woman professor and he had been talking to

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Mae Carter. Mae Carter and Adele Robertson, who were both working then in the continuing education division

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under, lets see, what was his name? Murray Dean Murray. And they came to Charles and they said, if you've got anybody could

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do a course in Women's Studies. And he said I bet you Barbara could So I had just been doing that course at the public library and he said,

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do you want to do that for us? And I said, yeah, I'd rather do something broader because at that point I was really interested in

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world literatures, otherwise studying English. So I did a course that had Tolstoy in it and it had Tawfiq al-Hakim

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in it and Kawabata And it was a world literature course about women, how they were portrayed in

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literature. That's what we did at first, rather than...women writers sort of came second. First came came this business

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of how women were portrayed in literature. So that's what, that's what we did. And that was at night. And I had two little kids.

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I commuted back and forth. And so I taught freshman English in the day time and, and this first women's

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studies course at night. [ML] And how was the reaction of students to the course? [BG] Well, I think that kind of a course

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drew people who really wanted it and that was wonderful. And actually, if you look on my desk, there's a picture of my first student,

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I think, sitting right there. No, no, that's not it. There's another one there, I think. Well, anyway, she and

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her husband now live in Hawaii. That's it. Yes. She was in my first women's studies class. She was young.

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She was she was a freshman or sophomore who jumped jumped in and and took it, but they were returning students.

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Of course, it was a mixture of students and I liked it, mostly women. I really enjoy teaching it. And it was worth getting home at

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11 at night and starting back up in the morning. from Swarthmore to Newark. It really was, it was a, it was a great pleasure.

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And Charles was very supportive at that time and Mae was very supportive always, always, always from day one. I mean she really

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I do call her the Doyen of women's studies. It's Mae she was the originator, that promoter,

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the keeper, the donor, the everything. [ML] Now you're starting out newly hired faculty teaching Women's Studies, which is not legitimate

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[ML] At this point, how did that impact your personal career? In any way obviously, you had support from Bohner.

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[BG] I had to I had support from Bohner all the way through and that was great. I didn't necessarily have

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support from the young men in the department who, two of whose friends were fired the year that Gloria Hull and I were hired.

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So when we came into English, we had two dubious vectors. One was the fellows who had hung out with the two men who were let

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go and didn't get tenure. And they always looked askance at us for a long time. And the other one, I think the older women

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who should have been very supportive, wondered what these new feminist young women were up to, one black and one white.

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I mean, they really did, I think. And so we did have that. But and it was hard that first push for tenure was

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very hard on both Gloria and me. Bohner put us up in the fifth year and we were both shot down. And yet we

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I don't I can't speak for Gloria but I had more publications at that point than, than the men who went through.

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So that was the way it was. It a battle. [ML] I have a letter here. That Ellen Morgan, who was Coordinator of Women's Studies

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wrote to Trabant in 75, describes how several instances of faculty members who are afraid of their promotional tenures

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would be jeopardized. Including one instance where the department asked a faculty member to confine yourself to traditional concerns

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and cease involvement with Women's Studies. And another, when a tenured faculty member was trying to advance the career of

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another female faculty member was trying to advance the career. of a young untenured female. Warned her to stay away from

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Women Studies because she wasn't going to get rewarded. And I wonder like how much that was an impact in those early years.

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Of Women Studies, scaring people off [BG] It was no question that that was an impact. As I said that it did probably messed up my tenure

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a bit, but not altogether. I think I think that was politics more than anything. It wasn't that I was devoting myself to

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Women's Studies and to English simultaneously, which I always was. I don't think that was a problem for me, but it was a problem for other people.

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And, you know, that first course that we did as a group, which was the following year. That was in 72. I was

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talking about 71 a minute ago in 72 and we all did that course together. That was, that was, that was

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in addition to everything else we did. And it was at night and again it was at night again and I was down there at night again.

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And that was that was hard that was hard to coordinate, hard to work. It's like the courses you do some of

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this one-hour courses, is everything going to fit? How are we going to get it to fit such a new area?

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Are we doing the right things in each area? Is this where it's gonna go or is it not going to go here?

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It was, it was, it was interesting. But I have the other experience the previous year of working on the Women's Studies Committee

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with several men who were very supportive. Frank Scarpitti 's name isn't in here, was on that committee. And Ben McLucky and other people

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who who were very Bennett, Ken Ackerman. They were very supportive too so and Sally Bould was hired. I can tell you this because

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I said to Scarpitti Why aren't there women in sociology of all things? And he said to me, there

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aren't any good ones. And I said, well, one of my good friends from Swarthmore is just graduating with a PhD. Why don't you Interview her.

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And that was Sally Bould. And they interviewed her and they hired her. So you did have to

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do that kind of thing? I did. You did have to network if you if you if you could in those days. [ML] And how you see

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the women's movements impacting the development of Women's Studies at UD? I think at some schools it was very visible and I'm just trying

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to understand connections between the women's community outside the university, perhaps at the university or

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is it more individuals? [BG]I don't think it was individuals. I can tell you that if I ever believed in shoulder to

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shoulder it was those days in the 1970s with those women who are on your list and you're probably going to interview them.

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There was a headiness that I never felt at any other point in my whole life from anything else. I mean, I would have done anything for Carol Hoffecker

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Lindy Geis, those people, and vice versa, I think. I mean, and we always had that feeling. It was a real feeling that women

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must have had in the 1860s and the 1890s and in the teens and trying to get the vote. I mean, it was just a powerful,

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powerful kind of a sense of, it wasn't a closeness, It was just a commonality that was very powerful. And that was happening.

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Of course, at the same time, the women's movement was working in this country. And in my profession, it was very strong.

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Too my syllabus for the course that we, that I told you about was, was actually in female studies two. And those things were,

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that's what we call that female studies. And female studies two was the very second thing that we were doing. And there was a big strong movement in,

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in studies of literature for, for more jobs for women. And the students were women and the women weren't getting the jobs.

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And more study of women in texts and as writers. And that became very strong women as writers.

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So I know it was support more than, than being put down. I think I spent probably an awful lot of time in Women's Studies that I

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could have done, doing something else, writing for example, or being on other key committees at the university.

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But still I don't think that I paid a high price and whatever price I may have paid was worth it for that sense of fellowship which was so powerful, really.

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[ML] So how long were you commuting back and forth and [BG] Gosh, until lets see, from 71 until 81. Yeah. Yeah. That was a long time.

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And the 95 wasn't two streams then. And it was that an easy commute. Yeah. I saw many moonlit nights and I felt, I did always feel,

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and I think most women faculty feel that way, that you have to work at least as hard as everybody else, maybe harder. And in order to do that,

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you have to take some assignments that are pretty unpleasant and times that you wouldn't want to be there and can't complain too much and better,

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better toe the line as well as to do everything else you're doing really. But I didn't mind that I had a lot of energy.

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[ML] So what do you remember about the early effort to organize women's Studies officially in the university in terms of

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how the support was coming from administration or the work of Mae Carter the Women's Studies committee to sort of

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get something formal in place [BG] That was always a battle without Mae it would've been very hard. Without Trabant, it would have been hard.

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I think Art Trabant and Mae Carter really, really worked hand-in-glove. They were great friends and great colleagues. And that really worked well.

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But it depended on who we had as a dean. I mean, if we had a dean in arts and science who wasn't necessarily fond of Women's Studies or

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preferred Black Studies or didn't like any studies than the times were tough. And if it wasn't, that wasn't the case,

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we could do fairly well for awhile and I think that that's how it went. But we had allies. I mean, the year that I the

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the time that I took over from Sandra Harding. We' were trying to get the major through and we'd written up the major.

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We got the major through that semester that spring. And we had terrific allies in various departments.

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For example, Juan Villamarin in, in anthropology was, was always right there. He was always right

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there for women's studies. I remember when we hired Alvina Quintana in English, that I was on the committee to hire.

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And it wasn't, she wasn't being hired. Her husband was being hired. in Film Studies Ed Guerrero. And he said, well

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I won't come without my wife. And I said, Well, what does your wife do? And he said,

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Chicano studies, I thought. Great. So I got on the phone and I immediately called Juan Villamarin and I said,

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help me recruit this couple. Here's a woman that can do Chicano studies and we can work across the, across the departments on this one.

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And that's the way it worked. I think a lot. There were departments and there were certain chairs and certain deans at certain time when you could make

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big strides and you could get things done like that. And there were other times that you couldn't at least that's my experience.

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[ML] So do you recall specific obstacles to be overcome in very early years? In terms of even establishing Women's Studies?

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[BG] I mean, that first course we all did, everyone had to get time off to do it or do it as overload. And there's no question about that.

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And some departments were very, I think sociology and English were pretty cooperative. Other departments weren't necessarily.

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I think psychology was pretty pretty cooperative. But with Lindy Geis there couldn't not be. I mean, she was a real dynamo,

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a terrific dynamo. And she got her way very often. And I remember a lot of strategies in the committee's later when

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Sandra Harding came on board, I remember discussions about how we should behave in terms of politics. And I think people like Mae

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Carter and myself had got by, by being firm, but but but listening and working with the men that we had to work with in order to get anything done at all.

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I remember Sandra and Lindy Geis saying, What do we want to do? Big mac or Little Mac. And I thought, what are we doing now?

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And they said, Machiavellian politics, that's what we're going to do. And I think we're gonna go Big Mac. And I still remember that thinking,

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my goodness, isn't that fascinating. So that was different. I figured at Delaware always, and maybe I was wrong,

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that you did the best if you had not only work hard and do your work really well, but also try not to

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step on people's feet but be firm at the same time. And I was lucky in that kind of thing. I think you're going to have to cut off

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now because I think those guys are here. [ML] That was when she wagged her tail, [BG] That's what she does. It doesn't matter. I mean, so you got a cat tail

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[ML] It's part of life. [BG] So where do we wanna go next [ML] The documents are not very clear about

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the early years with Ellen and then Joyce Walstad that we don't really have a lot in there. [BG] That's those are the documents that I had.

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Are you doing are you recording now? [ML} Yeah. [BG] Those are the documents that I gave you. Isn't that a shame? And so I

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can't remember all those details. I remember that we were desperate because we thought we finally got ourselves a nice leader.

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And we didn't have to do quite so much scut work all of us all the time. [ML] Ellen was hired in what 70 I think I might have it somewhere. [BG] Do you have a

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74, was it 74, something like that? I'm guessing. [ML] Yeah. I think it was. [BG] Well double-check because I'm not a 100% sure anymore.

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Those are the that's why I gave you those records. 74. [ML] Yeah. And and then she left because

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of health reasons, right? [BG] Right, That was odd too Then Joyce Walstadt came in [ML] and she was I guess at

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that time it was director from 76 to 80 [BG] It was director [ML] And then she left quickly or [BG} yeah, I can't tell you that.

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I don't I honestly don't remember. I just remember probably Maggie could Was Maggie there then. [ML] Probably [BG] because unfortunately,

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a lot of people have died. And who would remember those moments but I still remember. Bonnie Scott might have been around by then. [ML] Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

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[BG] Yeah. Bonnie was around in those days. Bonnie might remember that better actually because Bonnie was trying to jump in and help out.

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I do remember that, but, you know, I can't remember. I one of them, see. I can't even remember which ones

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I probably shouldn't say was having serious sort of break down type problems. And, and that was a real problem

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because people thought Women's Studies belong to women who were like Victoria and helpless creatures who had mental kinds of break downs

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and all this stuff. And so we were really, really concerned about not only the human being,

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which we certainly were, but also the images it was projecting at the very time we're trying to build.

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And that was really tough. I remember that. And I but I can't tell you the details and I wouldn't want to because they

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may not be a 100% accurate really. [ML] I do remember reading the documents that when Bonnie Bonnie Scott came on as

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acting director after Joyce left It was unclarity. There was not a whole lot of financial support?

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No. And there's unclarity about who was going to do what. I believe a cluster of five or six people went on

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a retreat to brainstorm? [BG] Yep, I think that's right. [ML] Yeah. And just sort of try and figure

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out where do we come from after that [BG] That's right. And one thing we wanted to get with space in some kind of home space.

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And how could we negotiate space and get a, get a home for Women's Studies? It wasn't some fly by night thing and and Bonnie fought hard to get and get the space

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and Smith Hall and and that was, I remember that very well. You see Bonnie was, I mean Bonnie was my junior colleague.

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I got to know her very, very well. She and I are extremely good friends and it is a kind of person that I really wanted in the English department

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and a real colleague both in Women's Studies and in English as Gloria Hull always was as well. So Bonnie is the one you can ask

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more about that because that was her doing and she was very, very concerned about getting us together in that way [ML] And was she

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only part time initially? [BG] she wasn't she had to work into the department. She was married to Tom Scott who was in

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psychology and she wasn't a regular hire. She was working her way into the department. She was having little children.

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And the she did get hired, I think maybe with Zach because he so respected her work with Joyce and Wolfe

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which is, it was his area too actually. And so at that point, she she came in as a full-time faculty member.

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She's always a very strong and and hard working, very hard working faculty member, very serious about her research.

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And we, you know, we always, we didn't always succeed in recruiting feminists, but we know we recruited

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Ann Ardis too really, we got some really strong, really intelligent, really good researchers in

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that department over the years, which was great. [ML] And so are you getting administrative help in some

00:22:38.120 - 00:22:45.410

of these recruitment or is it more that And I have to, you have to overcome their, objections [BG] as again, it depended on the deans and what was

00:22:45.410 - 00:22:51.590

going on and what their other priorities were. And you have to remember always that Women's Studies and Black Studies,

00:22:51.590 - 00:22:58.850

African-American studies came up together. And were always trying to help each other out, but vying for resources.

00:22:58.850 - 00:23:05.000

And this was a real problem. It was also a problem, I think if you could find Gloria Hull, who is now goes by the name Akasha.

00:23:05.000 - 00:23:12.680

Yeah. If you could find Akasha and ask her because she always tried to be loyal to those groups and that it was bad

00:23:12.680 - 00:23:18.430

enough to be loyal to a department and Women's Studies all the time. But too, split yourself

00:23:18.430 - 00:23:24.090

three ways like that was even harder, I think. And there were several women who were able to do that,

00:23:24.090 - 00:23:31.120

but Gloria was certainly one of them. I still call her Gloria because that's how I knew her. She doesn't like it,

00:23:31.120 - 00:23:37.900

but that's the way it is. Will you be able to see her at all? [ML] I hadn't tracked her down, [BG] last I heard she was in Shreveport,

00:23:37.900 - 00:23:49.690

Louisiana, but I saw her when she was in California at one point too. So so that's so I'm not a 100% sure. I could probably through Martha

00:23:49.690 - 00:23:57.940

Zingo, remember Martha Zingo? You may not. Yeah. She was a Women's Studies student and a very helpful and around around

00:23:57.940 - 00:24:07.040

a lot around the office and whatnot. And as she may have even taught a little bit in Women's Studies at one point. But we continue to get strong people like

00:24:07.040 - 00:24:18.200

Leslie Goldstein came in and Leslie Goldstein was a, a fab We would keep building our unit that way and across the arts and sciences departments,

00:24:18.200 - 00:24:25.970

mostly I'll really was, and, and that's how we can get in touch with the deans. Because the deans were in

00:24:25.970 - 00:24:31.610

charge of these very people that we were working with. Barbara Settles was there from the beginning and she

00:24:31.610 - 00:24:38.510

wasn't in arts and science, and she was a very hard worker. in the early days, [ML] and Barbara Kelly as well [BG] Barbara Kelly,

00:24:38.510 - 00:24:48.020

I was always a supporter and I know that she got us all to help with title nine. We really didn't help each other.

00:24:48.020 - 00:24:55.700

We would write letters and and do things that would that would help promote that when That was that was an issue?

00:24:55.700 - 00:25:07.790

[ML] Yeah she's been a mainstay So how do you think that the Women's Studies program and Now, department here at UD compares

00:25:07.790 - 00:25:15.140

to other departments, programs across the country. [BG] I'd say it had harder go. I mean, I have a colleague who was head at

00:25:15.140 - 00:25:23.810

York and Canada and, you know, they had many more resources and they were able to jump into a major and they were able to

00:25:23.810 - 00:25:31.760

jump into, Bonnie and I tried to get a master's degree at one point going and we just couldn't get we just, it was a hard fight on

00:25:31.760 - 00:25:43.040

every single one of those battles. The major seemed to be due then that was the graduate program was always a weird question and

00:25:43.040 - 00:25:53.840

the directorship had to turn that into a chairmanship was very difficult to all these things were really tough. It's it's just to I don't know why it's been

00:25:53.840 - 00:26:03.290

so hard because we always had the numbers. So I mean, when I went in for the major, I had the numbers right there. And we went into the Senate with

00:26:03.290 - 00:26:11.390

the numbers clearly in front of us. When I went into the Dean, when Mary Richards came on, she came on when I was there and I had

00:26:11.390 - 00:26:17.450

all the facts and figures for Mary Richards. And I said, Look at this, look what we're serving, look at the number of people we've got.

00:26:17.450 - 00:26:25.560

These courses. Look what the resources are that we have. I mean, we're doing it still on the backs of women and this is not good.

00:26:25.560 - 00:26:34.440

And she did listen to that, but then I was no longer in that position. I don't know how it went after that. [ML] It's just saying that

00:26:34.440 - 00:26:44.840

There's that long struggle and yet. We've just moved to Department as other schools I know are cutting, cutting their Women's Studies departments [BG] That's true. Well, that may be

00:26:44.840 - 00:26:51.170

a phenomenon of the University of Delaware sometimes, you know, in the 1970s. The other thing I was always

00:26:51.170 - 00:27:00.050

working on as well as Women's Studies was, was cutting across departmental borders and working with other people. And in the early seventies, it was easy.

00:27:00.050 - 00:27:04.980

I could work with people and cultural geography. I could work with Sally Bould in sociology,

00:27:04.980 - 00:27:11.640

and we could do Dickens and the urban poor. And that was okay. Then there was a long stretch when you couldn't do that at all.

00:27:11.640 - 00:27:19.460

And then suddenly Harvard begins doing this and other places began doing that. And then the We have this freshman across-the-board

00:27:19.460 - 00:27:26.870

core suddenly very late after other people do it. And so then it gets ensconced. And I think that's the way Delaware works.

00:27:26.870 - 00:27:35.090

It sits and looks for a long time before it moves on. These things and sometimes other places are, are decimating the things

00:27:35.090 - 00:27:42.260

that we've built to a strength. It's really interesting. I've seen that over the years. [ML] I can see that interdisciplinary work

00:27:42.260 - 00:27:47.750

now is sort of, [BG] it's a tap of the Var, what I always worked in, as you know, probably

00:27:47.750 - 00:27:58.010

was women in science writing. And women in science, it says my last two or three books, and that now is what they want.

00:27:58.010 - 00:28:03.110

I mean, Ann Ardis said to me the other day boy, if you could come back, we could give you grants and we could have you doing things

00:28:03.110 - 00:28:10.340

all the time because the stuff that you struggled to do is now what people do. But that's just the way it's always been,

00:28:10.340 - 00:28:18.480

I think so. [ML] Still cutting edge. [BG] It's still cutting edge. I'm giving a I'm giving a keynote in March,

00:28:18.480 - 00:28:27.350

at Ole Miss and doing things like that. Yeah, it's very cutting edge. Yeah. [ML] So if you look over the 40 years of Women's Studies what do you think of it as

00:28:27.350 - 00:28:36.080

Sort of low points. And what do you think are the high points, [BG] you know what, what most people looking from the outside,

00:28:36.080 - 00:28:45.200

would call the low points, was what a struggle it was to get it going for me was a high point because the collegiality and the power

00:28:45.200 - 00:28:59.240

of the people working together and, and never ever undercutting each other. And, and, and none of that bad politics stuff that you got was so wonderful and so heady,

00:28:59.240 - 00:29:06.730

as I said before, and so energizing that the bad point, maybe in a way, is a good point in some, in some ways.

00:29:06.730 - 00:29:15.170

But of course, all those, those, those, those markers that we got when we get those jobs upgraded from, from these part-time jobs for real jobs.

00:29:15.170 - 00:29:25.070

So we got the major really in all of those things were exciting for anybody. The low points might be the years that we just would push for

00:29:25.070 - 00:29:35.600

things and nothing would happen that that that was the case throughout the history of the department? I want to call it a unit

00:29:35.600 - 00:29:41.570

[ML] keep holding on until the next push [BG] that's it. Yeah. And hoping that you can get hoping that you get good,

00:29:41.570 - 00:29:49.400

strong people like yourself who will carry it on. Yeah, because that if people weren't willing to

00:29:49.400 - 00:29:57.050

do that, then you're going to lose it. I mean, that was always the danger that this thing could go backwards in the absolute opposite direction

00:29:57.050 - 00:30:06.540

after so much energy was put into it. [ML] So when Women's Studies was created, it was a program with an interdisciplinary connections across the University.

00:30:06.540 - 00:30:13.170

We've now become a department. Do you think there's going to be a downside having a separate department? [BG] I hope not.

00:30:13.170 - 00:30:21.140

I think that you're sufficiently understaffed that you might still have the shoulder to shoulder feeling if you had

00:30:21.140 - 00:30:29.540

a great big department like English, where there could be factions and people, people fighting for resources against each other.

00:30:29.540 - 00:30:37.920

Then even foreign languages even more. So I think that would be different. But I think that as long as is that energy is still there,

00:30:37.920 - 00:30:44.690

as long as that trust is still there. And as long as you can bring in a named chair. And people aren't jealous of

00:30:44.690 - 00:30:50.850

the person or something like that, but are happy to have something like that. That's what's, that's what's really important, I think.

00:30:50.850 - 00:30:58.250

[ML] Well, one of the arguments that's Held us back from getting the Department was administrators saying, well, the other departments are

00:30:58.250 - 00:31:05.120

going to feel like they're competing with you now and they're not going to be as willing to share their faculty. [BG] that's an interesting thought

00:31:05.120 - 00:31:15.100

that I never had to face that problem, but it could be a problem. I don't know. I think that if you have well established sharing,

00:31:15.100 - 00:31:23.600

that that will continue. And if you have people like myself and others that you could name in a minute, like Leslie, and others who have been in the program

00:31:23.600 - 00:31:31.400

who are willing to do that, then they can somewhat set their agendas once they have tenure and once people know how hard

00:31:31.400 - 00:31:41.420

they work and how good they are at what they do. But if it maybe more difficult for new hires, maybe on the other hand,

00:31:41.420 - 00:31:50.390

I think the younger men think of younger women as colleagues. At least that was the case in English when I left and have a lot of

00:31:50.390 - 00:31:58.880

respect for them and see them just as complete peers. And I think they would want them to do what they want to do.

00:31:58.880 - 00:32:08.420

That'd be my guess. But English has always had people who do other things other than English. So that maybe an unusual department that way.

00:32:08.420 - 00:32:15.080

[ML] And also hopefully there's more recognition about concern about gender issues as well. [BG] I would hope I would hope so.

00:32:15.080 - 00:32:23.720

I think so. I think so. Although the terrible things we read in the paper every day happening to women and in various continents,

00:32:23.720 - 00:32:33.380

it says hasn't changed a lot. I can imagine people being stoned or people having their genitals mutilated?

00:32:33.380 - 00:32:42.380

And I mean, those things are appalling still and they always have been people dying on pyres. These things are awful. So I don't know,

00:32:42.380 - 00:32:52.350

but I think Women's Studies has certainly in my experience where I've been abroad, which is Europe and, and really the Pacific Rim.

00:32:52.350 - 00:33:01.950

Mostly the things that really change, I mean, a country like Australia has changed more radically than we have in terms of, in terms of feminism and women's studies.

00:33:01.950 - 00:33:11.660

So it's always good to see those things [ML and to see more global work being done as well, right. [BG] Right, right, right, right.

00:33:11.660 - 00:33:21.830

I think possibly our Secretary of State is pretty good at that. [ML] So are there is there information that you want me to make sure I

00:33:21.830 - 00:33:28.520

have that I don't know about yet. [BG] I'm just very concerned about there's early records. I really am. When I look at some of

00:33:28.520 - 00:33:36.860

the written materials that you've been given that you didn't generate. And I wonder about that. I would say Carol's book is fairly accurate,

00:33:36.860 - 00:33:43.250

but it's not a 100% accurate. I know that from my own experience. And she didn't necessarily interview everybody.

00:33:43.250 - 00:33:49.640

Carol Hoffecker when she wrote her book about the women at the University of Delaware. So find

00:33:49.640 - 00:33:55.490

as many people as you can who were around and ask them, I would really talk to Sandra. I really talk to Bonnie if you

00:33:55.490 - 00:34:04.820

can and if you can't do it videoing, maybe you can do it some other way. You can Skype them. That's right. [ML] You can videotape Skyping.

00:34:04.820 - 00:34:09.120

We could figure it out. [BG] You can figure it out. I don't know. There must be some way of doing it.

00:34:09.120 - 00:34:14.280

I'm sure somebody. I've gotta pay. Okay.